The Moffat County High School girls varsity golf team practices last week in the East Elementary School gymnasium. The Bulldogs competed in their first tournament of the season Monday at Chipeta Golf Course in Grand Junction. Head coach Ann Marie Roberts said despite the team not having practiced outside, each player made great strides.

The Moffat County High School girls varsity golf team had little time to prepare for the first tournament of the season, hitting the links Monday after only a week of practice.

That week of practice came inside the East Elementary School gymnasium, making Monday’s Palisade Invitational at Chipeta Golf Course in Grand Junction the first time four of the five MCHS players stepped on a course as a high school player.

Senior Sam Fox led the way with an 85 on the par-59 executive course made up primarily of par-3s.

Fox, the only returning Bulldog golfer to play Monday, said despite not posting the score she wanted, she was happy with the way she played.

“Not being able to practice outside and with the little warm-up I did have, I felt I played pretty good,” she said. “My long game was fine, but my chipping and putting are something I really need to practice on more.”

Head coach Ann Marie Roberts said the tournament was relaxed and more for practice than competing for first place.

Roberts said she gave all the new golfers the option to just play a round of nine, but everyone wanted to get a full round in.

“With only five days of practice and two girls who have never played before, I was really happy and excited with the way the girls played,” she said. “None of them wanted to leave the course.”

Roberts said she tried to make the rounds to all the golfers, using the opportunity to work with them on course management and showing them a trick or two.

The main thing the girls carried over from the gym to the course, she said, was chipping.

“We have been working on chipping by hitting targets and I think our chipping was huge (Monday),” she said. “Our long game wasn’t as good because we can’t really use our woods in the gym, but we did extremely well on chipping and it made a big difference in their games.

“I try to instill in the beginning that if you can chip and putt, you can compete with anyone and they improved a lot in chipping.”

Fox said she remembered her first high school tournament and tried to calm the nerves of younger players.

“Nobody does good in their first tournament and so I tried to put them at ease,” she said. “It happened to me and I’m not new to having to play without practicing outside. I told them to be calm and just have fun.”

Roberts said Fox hit the ball great Monday and if she had more time to practice putting, her score would have been much lower.

Making the move from the carpeted gym to grass, Fox said, wasn’t easy.

“Putting really requires you to have a good feel of the grass and the ball,” she said. “Being on carpet every day and then moving to grass is totally different. It is hard to get it down without having practiced on a green.”

The Bulldogs compete Friday in the Delta Invitational at Devil’s Thumb Golf Course in Delta.

Fox said getting the first tournament in would help everyone drop their scores.

“In the first tournament, I mainly wanted to have fun and not really worry about the score,” she said. “Now that we know what the grass actually feels like, I think we can improve a lot in the next couple of tournaments.”